From his countertop perch at the rear of the office, Gerald could observe the whole room and feel the bulk of the creeping awkwardness that permeated the air. The harsh artificial lighting that bathed the room in a sickly glow, coupled with the furniture that was seemingly plucked from another age contributed greatly to the unpleasantness. From his experience, throwing a bunch of people together in one small area never ended well. Thankfully, he didn't really give a care at present. He never was really an anxious type to begin with, but furthermore he felt a strange sense of calm wash over him ever since the other guests arrived. Heck, he even felt a little on the sleepy side, oddly enough. Maybe he should have had some coffee instead of spiking his blood sugar with all those cookies.
His hand rested on the edge of the countertop as he leaned his weight onto it. Out of the corner of his eye, he could have sworn the he saw the coffeemaker that sat on the counter to his right move forward about an inch and a half. A subsequent flash of movement of the inanimate appliance piqued his curiosity enough to cause him to actually expend the effort to turn and look at it. Just as he turned, he noticed the entire wall push forward into the room, dislodging his grip on the edge of the counter.
"What the Hell?" he uttered as he struggled to regain his balance. The wall now swung forward into the room, revealing a dark area behind it. The coffeemaker fell to the floor with a crash, forming a small caffeinated lake on the linoleum.
A short, middle-aged man with thick-rimmed glasses popped his head from the newly-formed space in the wall. "Oh dear," he mumbled, starting down at the spilled beverage spreading on the ground, "Not again." He shook his head, as if it was a necessary movement to clear his thoughts and refocus on the task at hand. "Well, anyway, we are ready for you all now! If you will just come this way!" His hand reached instinctively to the bridge of his nose to slide his heavy glasses further up unto his face and then, without waiting for a response from anyone, he ducked his head back into the darkness and disappeared.
Gerald and Chester exchanged a glance and a shrug, then filed in after the creepy little fellow. It took a few moments for their eyes to adjust to the abrupt darkness, coming from the stabbing gold beams of the dingy waiting area. Blinking as if to hasten the process, the boys eventually got a good look at their new surroundings. The somber chasm they entered was about half the size of the waiting area, the walls, ceiling, floor, and almost every surface made of an odd matte black plastic-like material. The intense darkness of the room was diluted only by a single ring of dim blue light emanating from a curious semi-transparent glass disc on the ceiling. Waist-high computer consoles lined the interior walls, and these too gave off a faint blue light, but not enough to combat the gloomy darkness that made one feel as if they had entered the center of the Earth.
All in all, the room was indeed a scientific marvel and a rather impressive display. The arrival into the midst of this scene should have been something to instill wonderment, curiosity, and perhaps a bit of fear into even the most resolute of men; however, Gerald could only focus on how tired he was. Physical exhaustion and mental fuzziness plagued him, and he felt as if someone had pulled some plug out of his brain. He could feel his body moving, but he felt barely in control. Sounds and sights reached him, but they seemed not to register. He glanced at Chester, who appeared to be feeling the same way. The 50-mile drive from the airport was crammed with Chester's boyish excited ramblings about this trip, and now he wore a blank expression of a man who was completely and utterly numb.
Hovering over one of the computer terminals near the door were two gaunt figures, their floor-length white lab coats reflecting the dim blue light and making them appear like pallid specters in the shadows. They exchanged distressed words in hushed tones and stabbed their fingers at buttons on the console.
Gerald couldn't entirely make out what the two specters were saying in his current state of lethargy, but a few scarps of the conversation managed to meet his ears. From what he could tell, they were saying things like "What happened to the rest? They should be here by now", "Did Roberts check in?", "Check all the accident and traffic reports…", "Do you think it could have been--", "NO, not that!" and other such vocalizations of concern. Right now the words held no meaning to Gerald and Chester. All either of them wanted to do was lay down somewhere and sleep for hours, days, or weeks maybe. Yes, weeks would be nice.
The boys' prayers were answered, as the glass doors lining the circular room suddenly slid open at once, revealing individual closet-sized rooms with reclining chairs in each. They did not even have to be asked to take a seat, as within a few moments of their reveal, the boys helped themselves to a seat in the black leather reclining chairs. Who cared if they were reminiscent of dentists chairs, and who cared if there was a monstrous hunk of machinery looming behind each chair, its Kraken-like metal appendages dangling menacingly near the head rest. It was a comfy seat, and that is all that mattered to these two walking zombies.
Two scientists in the center of the room exchanged shocked glances, their expressions of surprise quickly being replaced with satisfied smirks. This was easier than they ever hoped it would be. Here they had to come up with all these tall tales to explain away the frightening machinery to the prospective guinea pigs, and they didn't even need to use them. That long staff meeting about this was all for naught! What a waste of an afternoon that could have been spent playing on the Internet. Well, at least the rest of their day looked like it would go smoothly enough. They continued into the two small rooms Gerald and Chester entered, and proceeded to hook up the two nearly-comatose men to the VR equipment. The sedative-laced snacks and beverages not only helped calm the victims, but also made their minds more receptive to the VR technology.
Chester was vaguely aware of someone standing beside his chair, wrestling with the cold metallic tentacles of the hulking machine behind his head. Despite the sedatives in his system, he felt the cold hand of fear take hold of his forehead...or maybe that was just the cold steel of the VR headset. He wasn't quite sure. Either way, fear was starting to take hold, though its grip still fairly feeble.
He suddenly felt a sharp, stabbing pain at the base of his skull, then he didn't feel anything at all. He didn't see anything at all. He couldn't hear anything at all. Oh shit, am I dead? Well, he could think, at least. Dead people can't think...can they?
Chester lost track of the time he spent floating in this anesthetized void. When completely alone with nothing but one's own incoherent thoughts, what does time matter anyway? Did time matter to Abraham Lincoln while he was riding that sentient cactus, or to the cat from the Fancy Feast commercial? Did it matter when Russian pizzas with Koosh balls for heads were taking over the Earth while he robbed a candy orphanage? No, no it didn't.
It could have been seconds, minutes, or hours, but Ches eventually felt the sensation of something hard supporting his spine, then his arms, neck, head, and legs. Something thin and flat created a texture beneath his moving fingers, and he felt wind tickling his face. He willed his eyes to open, like when in a dream from which one desperately wishes to awaken. He couldn't take that chameleon in the dashing top hat staring at him any longer. It was getting creepy. His eyelids slowly peeled apart and a bright azure sky flooded his vision and banished all the bizarre apparitions of his subconscious. He felt grounded in reality once more.
Sitting up, Chester looked around him. He was in a field of some sort, the delicate breeze rippling through the waves of tall grass. Straight ahead of him lay a grassy knoll, atop of which was what looked to be a run-down old house, and a large one at that. The windows were broken, the grey paint was peeling, and the entire structure appeared to be slanting to one side. Quaint.
"Hey, look who decided to come back to life." Gerald's voice sounded from behind, and Ches felt a small object bounce off his head. A pinecone landed on his lap and he swung around to see his friend standing with a sarcastic grin on his face. So there were two possibilities here, Ches decided. Either they both had died, and this was some sort of afterlife, or the virtual reality really worked….and worked really damn well. Ches was pretty sure that the houses in any afterlife would be nicer than the one that greeted him on his arrival, so he figured the latter was the more likely.
